Back To Normal, Such As It Is...

First, thanks to all of you for the notes of well-wishing, prayers, and ultimately congratulations on my recent eye surgery. It means a lot to me. The vision is getting better and better as the effects of the surgery wear off. In fact, I can now see the telltale blurriness of the cataract in my left eye, which I never noticed before. I will probably have that eye done sometimes next year, unless I end up on one of ObamaCare's Death Panel proscribed list (Dear Mr. Bane...upon reviewing your application for cataract surgery, we note two important points...you are old old old! And you are an enemy of the state...so tough noogies and best of luck getting a seeing eye dog!...Best, Department of Public Caring).

I'm really excited about getting to the range, but the ravages of Global Warming are keeping me inside, huddled in front of the fire. We took poor Alf the Wonder Beagle out for her afternoon walk and she nearly blew away. She was all bundled up in layers, but she still looked pretty surly about the whole thing.

And while I've been laid up, our enemies have been ramping up. In today's WaPo, noted gun-hater EJ Dionne is ready to "revolutionize the gun debate" by proving that all gun owners, including NRA members, support every slimy antigun scheme to have come from the cesspool of Michael Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns:

In his survey of 832 gun owners, including 401 NRA members, Luntz found that 82 percent of NRA members supported "prohibiting people on the terrorist watch lists from purchasing guns." Sixty-nine percent favored "requiring all gun sellers at gun shows to conduct criminal background checks of the people buying guns," and 78 percent backed "requiring gun owners to alert police if their guns are lost or stolen." Among gun owners who did not belong to the NRA, the numbers were even higher.

It's true that these gun owners, including NRA members, don't buy broader forms of gun control. For example, 59 percent of NRA members opposed "requiring every gun owner to register each gun he or she owns as part of a national gun registry," though I was surprised that 30 percent supported this.

And gun owners continue to worry that President Obama "will attempt to ban the sales of guns in the United States at some point while he is president." Asked about this, 44 percent of NRA members said Obama "definitely" would and 35 percent said he "probably" would.

Still, those surveyed stood behind the core idea that gun regulations and gun rights complement each other. The poll offered this statement: "We can do more to stop criminals from getting guns while also protecting the rights of citizens to freely own them." Among all gun owners and NRA members, 86 percent agreed.

NRA members also oppose the idea behind the so-called Tiahrt amendments passed by Congress. Named for Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), the rules prevent law enforcement officials from having full access to gun trace data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and require the FBI to destroy certain background-check records after just 24 hours. Talk about handcuffing the police.

The mayors' poll offered respondents this statement, antithetical to the Tiahrt rules: "The federal government should not restrict the police's ability to access, use, and share data that helps them enforce federal, state and local gun laws." Among NRA members, 69 percent agreed.

Ah, scumbags will be scumbags, won't they? Anybody with the IQ of one of those robotic hamsters so popular right now could write survey questions to get the answers they wanted. For example, on that spooky terrorist watch list question, an honest survey would have first defined the situation so the person filling out the questionnaire might have a better understanding of the question. For example:

1) The United States government presently maintains a "Terrorist Watch List" of more than 1 million people, including hundreds of thousands of Americans.

2) The list is secret; no one knows why people have been placed on this list. People on the list are not allowed to face the agency that placed them on the list nor question why they are on the list.

3) Persons on the list have NOT been convicted of any crime, nor are they "persons of interest" in any crime.

4) Thousands of innocent people, including members of Congress, lawyers and judges, even the President of Bolivia, have been detained or refused permission to fly because their names were ostensibly on this list.

5) None of these people have been granted due process, the founding principle of the American legal system and a principle that we extend even to self-confessed terrorists who have actively participated in the deaths of thousands of Americans.

QUESTION: Are you in favor of depriving persons on the secret Terrorist Watch List of even more of their Constitutional rights, even though they have committed no crime, been charged with no crime, have not been able to face their attackers nor been granted due process as guaranteed by American law?

Can See! Can See!

Got the eyepatch off and, yes, I can see! I can see!

Avast, Ye Mangy Curs!

ACME "BUILD-A-PIRATE" KIT

√ EYEPATCH

√ PARROT

√ BLACK SG HOODY

NEEDS:

• CUTLASS

• SHIP

• CREW

• HANDGUN WITH BAYONET

• RUSSELL CROWE SCRIPT FROM "MASTER & COMMANDER"

Midway USA Wins Baldrige Award

Midway USA has been named one of five recipients for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award:

The 2009 Baldrige Award recipients were selected from a field of 70 applicants. All of the applicants were evaluated rigorously by an independent board of examiners in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning; customer focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce focus; process management; and results. The evaluation process for each of the recipients included about 1,000 hours of review and an on-site visit by a team of examiners to clarify questions and verify information in the applications.

This is a huge honor, essentially naming Midway USA as one of the best-run small companies in America.

Congratulations to to my good friend Larry Potterfield, who's presently in Africa chasing big elephants, and all the great folk in Columbia, MO, who have worked very, very hard for this honor.

HMMMMMMMM, after all the endless "gun-free workplace" propaganda we've heard over the years, I wonder if the fact that Midway USA's workforce are surrounded buy guns, with guns in practically every cubicle, changed any minds....

Light Blogging Likely!

I've got to spend all day today in the studio doing voice-over work for SHOOTING GALLERY, then tomorrow I get my eyeball refurbished...that means less blogging than usual this week...or maybe more...we'll see (nudge nudge wink wink say no more).

Jim Shepherd in this morning's SHOOTING WIRE noted that by his observation the little .380 semiautos were still selling like hotcakes topped with golden syrup, although perhaps not in so many snazzy words. That's consistent with what I'm seeing and hearing from the industry...it is amazing the number of .380 semiautos that have been sold since Ruger rocked the industry with the LCP.

In truth, when I put my pants on in the morning I stick the LCP in a DeSantis Nemesis holster in my pocket, where it stays all day. The only change is when I strap on my regular carry pistol; then I transfer the LCP to my left pocket. I know a lot of hardcore "J-frame people" who have switched over to the semis. Again, my standard carry ammo is Corbon DPX 80-grain.

I hope to have one of the little Taurus TCPs soon for T&E. As I mentioned a while back, I shot the premium priced Kahr a few months back and it was just a super — and accurate — little pistol. I shot a BUG gun stage with a borrowed Kahr .380 at Tom Givens' Tactical Conference last summer, and it was right there! I don;t like to make 12-15 yard shots with a pocket .380...especially a borrowed .380...but it was no problemo with the Kahr.

Briefly, Springfield has a new concealed carry M-series XD. Should be hugely popular. Gotta go to work!

Snowy Sunday Nuthin' Big Goin' On...

I woke up this morning around 5AM and for the life of me couldn't get back to sleep. So instead of counting sheep I counted up all the reloading stuff I need to buy for the Spring .50 BMG initiative, where Michael Attempt To Get Beyond The ".50 Plinker" status. I've been lucky enough to put a lot of Big 50 rounds downrange from a bunch of different guns, including a few rounds through my own Barrett Model 99 single shot. I have a Hornady .50 BMG reloading set-up, and it works fine as long as it's a few rounds (think "power case trimmer!").

The .50 is irritating to reload because it's not like a "regular" commercial cartridge...specs are all over the place, since the cartridge was designed for the Ma Deuce with its adjustable headspace and blunt trauma style of operation. This is especially an issue with primer pockets...it's hard to screw up repriming a commercial cartridge, unless you put the primer in upside down. Not so with a .50...you can seat 'em too deep, or over-crush them or, in general, screw up.

So I'm looking at a dedicated primer seater like the M2 Precision. At $300. Or the Hornady primer depth gauge, at a liitle less painful $117. I'd like little more precision in seating the bullet as well, so add another $238 for a CH-4D in-line seating die. And let's just flat out deal with this case trimmer nightmare, which means at the top end some sort of power tool like a Gracey or the painfully expensive Giraud, or more sanely a hand-cranked Forster, which I've used before on other cartridges, or a K&M, which comes highly recommended.

One thing I can unequivocally say for the .50 BMG...it makes every other shooting sport cheap by comparison!

More Signs That the Bubble is Thoroughly Popped

S&W takes a beating on Wall Street today...from Barrons:

The gun maker Smith & Wesson (SWHC) said its sales outlook for the next quarter would be far off target.

The company said after the close of trading yesterday that for its fiscal third quarter, ending in January 2010, it expects sales of $90 million to $95 million, significantly below the average analyst estimate of $105 million, according to Thomson Reuters.

Not surprisingly, investors promptly fired back, dumping shares en masse.

The stock plunged 16% to $4.41 on the news as volume topped eight million shares, more than five times the average daily trading volume during the past three months.

H-K Woops?

About that squad automatic weapon contract for an H-K Christmas present? Maybe not. From Christian at DefenseTech:

So Syscom wrote me back a vaguely-​​worded email response to a query about all this, seemingly denying that the service had made a final decision on the IAR and stating only that the Corps had ordered “24 weapons” from an “existing contract” that was let back in December ’08. That would most likely be the original con tract to Colt, FN and HK for the IAR downselectees.

H-K has a history of ill-timed leeks...remember the big coverage on Fox about the "next generation U.S. infantry rifle," the late XM-8?

I'm waiting for my copy of my friend Dave Kopel's newest book, AIMING FOR LIBERTY: THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF FREEDOM AND SELF-DEFENSE. Here's the Amazon review:

David Kopel's book covers topics ranging from the origins of the Wascington, DC gun ban to the Heller decision. He discusses the genesis of modern American gun control, the KKK, the true anti-gun agenda and the deceptions and errors used to promote anti-gun laws. He covers the right to self defense from Judeo Christiran perspectives. Other chapters explore United Nations and International gun control attempts and failures, law enforcement abuses and solutions, the culture of the right to keep and bear arms and the gun control movement. He concludes his book with a chapter on several prominent American gunowners from Thomas Jefferson to Eleanor Roosevelt.

Dave is an important figure in RKBA circles, and I'm looking forward to the book.

There's a really brilliant piece of self-defense writing on master gunsmith Grant Cunningham's blog about shooting stances, and I would class it a "must-read:"

Since we're talking about self defense, let's start with the conclusion: as I study surveillance films of actual shootings, and as I play with the concepts of force-on-force training, I'm struck by the fact that violent encounters rarely involve an identifiable stance. The players, especially the defender, are shooting from whatever position in which they happen to find themselves.
[...]
Some may immediately think of the term 'training wheels', but I prefer to call the stance a 'scaffold': a temporary device that allows us to build something. In the case of a defensive shooter, we're building a skill set. Without the support of the scaffold - the solid, repeatable stance - it's difficult, if not impossible, to build those skills. With it, the student can focus on the truly important things, secure in the knowledge that they are operating from a stable base.

The problem comes when the instructor doesn't understand the true nature of the shooting stance. In those cases, the stance becomes an end unto itself: it drives the instruction, rather than serving as an instructional tool.

Back in the old days of IPSC shooting we used to design stages to force people out of their comfort zones. I may have mentioned one of my all-time favorite stages was the one I designed for a state championship...the Tom Sawyer Memorial Fence Assault. We got 20-some-odd feet of 6-foot high fence sections, anchored them on fenceposts, then had step ladders, platforms and obstacles along the length of the fence. Some of the shooting ports were cut with a Sawz-All; some created with just a sledge hammer, leaving a jagged, irregular-shaped hole; ports were anywhere from ground level to over the top of the fence. Targets on the other side of the fence were a contact distance out to 25 yards, with vision barriers to limit from which shooting port the targets were visible.

I was honored when one of the top shooters in the world said, "Congratulations, Michael...there is no good way to run this stage!"

Home Again Home Again...

...and brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. It's already below zero here at the Secret Hidden Bunker, and by morning we anticipate hell actually freezing over. Break out the ice skates!

And speaking of hell freezing over, H-K has nabbed the squad automatic weapon contract for the Marines with a modified 416 piston gun. The Firearms Blog has the scoop:

The H&K entry was a modified version of their HK416 piston-operated AR-15 rifle. Unlike the Colt and FN entries, it is said to fire only from a closed bolt. Given the lack of an open-bolt fire mode I had presumed it was the least likely choice for an automatic rifle.

For those of you frothing at the mouth (hmmmmm...I might be one of those frothers) for a 7.62/.308 semi with magazines that don't require a home mortgage to purchase, I note that JD Machine now has 7.62 X 51 uppers that will work with the CMMG 7.62 lowers designed for the ultracheap H-K G3 magazines. The first time I saw the proto CMMG lowers earlier this year, a veritable light bulb went off in my head...the big drawback to so many of the 7.62 AR-based platforms has been proprietary magazines at a pretty penny. OTOH, I've seen G3 20-rounders for less than $3 apiece! One of my projects for 2010 is a nice .308 built on the CMMG G3 lower, and the JD upper looks like the bee's knees.

A Really Strange Dream...

I woke up this morning thinking, I have let my 1911 down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have not been true to my values and the behavior my 1911 deserves. I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect. I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my 1911. Those feelings should be shared by us alone...but damn, that Glock was cute!

What do you think it means? Does Wilson Combat or Kimber offer therapy? Could I get on Oprah? Should I engage Gloria Allred as my celebrity attorney?

AnarchAngel has an interesting post this AM on choosing a chronograph...the reason I link it here is that I've had a chrono for so long it never occurs to me that most shooters don't, and the chrono is an absolutely critical tool if you reload...and who doesn't these days? I've used Prochronos from Competition Electronics for decades. That's the one where the skyscreens are built into the unit, so you're shooting over the chrono. And NO, I've never put a bullet through a chrono, although my friend Tom Judd (with whom I started Front Range IDPA back in the day) has. The round had sufficient velocity to leave a really impressive wound channel.

I have to say if I was buying now I might look at a PACT Professional or another with a printing function. One thing I've wished is that I had a hard copy of of the hundreds of loads I've chrono'ed over the year stapled to the appropriate pages in the reloading manual as opposed to cryptic scribbled notes I can no longer decipher...I'm pretty sure that "200/7.8gUnique3900" doesn't mean I'm getting 3900 fps off 7.8 grains of Unique behind a 200 grain .44 lead bullet...I'd still be scrubbing lead out of the barrel...

(Flick'r photo ©Peter Kim, portfolio Absolute Cherry here)